The Evolution Of Betting At Chester

I have always looked forward to the big Chester meeting after the Guineas weekend ever since I first stared in wonder at the betting shop screen and asked my boss if Chester had a straight. Over the years I have had a lot of fun punting at this course. Even at the turn of the century it was generally easy to end up in profit or at least not badly off after this meeting. The key was always to pick your favourite horse from the lowest 5 post position’s and making sure that he would get out well. The only people down in the mouth were the bookies and the badly drawn jockeys and trainers.  

In those days we didn’t have access to the kind of information regarding the draw as we have today yet I feel the public used to make more money from the meeting. Draw bias information was scarce unless you purchased a massive book with the previous year’s results in. We combined the information from the book with carefully recorded handwritten stats regarding the recent season and visual analysis on the day. It was difficult to research and generally punters relied on “the word on the street”. At one point I remember the Racing Post had some elementary data but it was not very useful.  

Things have come a long way since then and we can access up to 10 years' worth of stats on any British course with a few mouse clicks. Not only that but we can view how different race conditions change the chances. 

The punters are by no means the only people to take notice of this information. The bookmakers raised a cynical eyebrow and shortened the prices on the horses they liked in the first 4 and extended the prices of the horses that in their eyes failed to make the grade. This allowed them to protect their liabilities on the better horses and to entice people to bet on the boosted price horses that had a smaller chance.  

The trainers and jockeys have also taken notice and whereas before they may have decided to run a horse in its normal fashion nowadays, they are quite happy to modify the horse's style to give them a chance with an impossible draw. This can sometimes create a false pace in the race. 

The draw is incredibly significant at this course. The course is almost constantly turning to the left with what I have heard described as a cricket pitch for the straight. Most of the time you want to concentrate on draws 1 to 4. With unraced horses or inexperienced 2yo’s a horse can actually benefit from a wider draw as long as it's not too high as it allows them to see through the turn which makes them more confident as they have a better idea of what is going on and are unlikely to get caught up in any crunch points. It is important the horse has a good record of getting away well from the stalls here otherwise there will be no benefit to the good post position.